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Guardians of Middle Earth does a remarkably good job translating the MOBA genre to the Xbox 360.

I'll start this off with something some might deem heretical: I prefer playing MOBA/ARTS games with a controller rather than with a keyboard and mouse.

I didn't even know this about myself until these past few days, as I delved into Monolith's Guardians of Middle Earth, the first League of Legends style game to make its way to consoles.

The game is very similar to DOTA 2 or League of Legends, and while all three have their various differences, if you've played any of them you have a pretty good idea about the others.

Guardians of Middle Earth is unique in two ways: First, it is a console game that is played with a controller. Second, it's set in a much-altered Tolkien universe where you can play as Gandalf, Sauron, and various other characters who are cycled in an out regularly a la League of Legends. You can purchase characters, skins, and so forth with in-game gold which you earn playing matches.

Unlike other MOBAs out there, the game is not free-to-play and has no microtransactions (currently.) Unlocking content can be done in two ways. Right off the bat, you can play to earn gold and level up, unlocking new abilities and purchasing new characters and skins.

There's also a Season Pass which costs the same as the game itself ($14.99 on PSN or 1200 Microsoft Points.) The Season Pass grants access to new characters and content to be released in the future. Those future characters will also be available as individual transcations, but the entire opening roster can be accessed down through in-game currency.

MOBA Lite

The game is quite similar its predecessors.

You have your base and your towers. Soldiers spawn at regular intervals and head down their three lanes. Guardians battle it out with one another, leveling up their skills as they battle.

You can capture Shrines which help replenish Guardians' life, and you can fight NPC monsters to gain experience points.

You can also level up your towers and make them more powerful, or level up your barracks to create Elite Soldiers, Mounted Soldiers, and Siege units (like massive Ents.)

Button-mapping in Guardians of Middle Earth is well implemented and intuitive.

Each button casts a different power, while the Right Trigger lands a basic attack. Left Trigger utilizes a special power with a long cooldown. As you level up between matches you unlock more slots for these special powers as well as more slots for consumables which are mapped to the d-pad. There's no in-match shop, however, so you're basically stuck with whatever items you enter any given match with until it ends.

In other words, it's a slightly more streamlined and simplified version of the MOBA genre.

For someone like me who simply has neither the time nor inclination to learn the more elaborate systems in LoL and DOTA 2 (though I am trying) this simplification is welcome. For hardcore MOBA players, it might not be. But I think it's a wise choice for a console release, and not one that I find detracts from the experience at all.

I also like the fact that you can choose between PvP, PvE co-op, and solo matches. I can play Guardians of Middle Earth with a bot team against bots while I learn the game. In other MOBAs I always feel like I'm dragging down my team, so it's nice to face the learning curve for a while at least all on my own.